BackgroundThe anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury rate for girls/women has not changed in over 20 years, and they remain 3–6 times more likely to experience injury compared with boys/men. To date, ACL injury prevention and management has been approached from a sex-based biological point of view which has furthered our understanding of injury risk factors, mechanisms, and prevention and rehabilitation programmes. However, the traditional sex-based approach does not take into account the growing recognition of how sex and gender (a social construct) are ‘entangled’ and influence each other.ObjectiveThis paper discusses the curious absence of gender as an influencer in the dialogue surrounding ACL injuries. We propose adding gender as a pervasive developmental environment as a new theoretical overlay to an established injury model to illustrate how gender can operate as an extrinsic determinant from the presport, training and competition environments through to ACL injury and the treatment environment.ApproachWe draw on social epidemiological theories of the embodiment of gender and health to provide plausible examples of how gender may influence ACL injury, and demonstrate the opportunity for new, interdisciplinary research in the field.ConclusionOver 20 years of research has failed to decrease the ACL injury rate disparity between girls/women and boys/men. Embedding gender in the study of ACL injury will heighten awareness of possible influences outside the traditional biological elements, challenge us to think about the inextricable ‘entanglement’ of sex and gender, and inform more effective approaches to ACL injury prevention and treatment.

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Page | 1 Title A qualitative study of key stakeholders' perspectives on compassion in healthcare and the development of a framework for compassionate interpersonal relations. Design: Exploratory, qualitative design. Short title Compassion in Health CareMethods: Academic staff, health care students, clinicians and service users (n=45), participated in nine focus groups where they were asked to define compassion in the context of health care. Data were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis.Results: Four overarching themes were drawn from the data. The first theme centred on participants' definitions of compassion, while the second identified compassionate behaviours. The third theme related to barriers and threats to compassionate practice and the fourth, focused on ways to support compassion in practice. Participants believed that health care staff should be 'consistently compassionate', and were emphatic that compassion should not be substituted with a 'care without engagement' approach. Conclusions:The findings concur with other research, which identifies the link between compassion and empathy and the importance of establishing meaningful connections with others. Whilst participants in this study recognised the pressures of health care work and accepted that the expectation of 'consistent compassion' was not necessarily realistic, it was still seen as an important goal.

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Leg strengthening may not provide an advantage over arm strengthening for improving jump-landing movement patterns in young female athletes. This has implications for the design of conditioning programs if injury prevention is a goal.